Of Snowballs, Cell Phones, and Homicide
by FinalArc
Summary: In their own words, Yusuke and Kurama desperately attempt to explain why they tried to kill Yukina.
1. Yusuke

Uh…

Hello.

My name is Yusuke Urameshi.

Well, uh, you're probably wondering what's going on.

I'm not so sure, myself. I just became privy to all the details about ten minutes ago, and it hasn't quite assembled itself into something that makes sense yet. The last half hour was especially crazy. But, _someone_ has to explain what happened today, and as the only capable party, I guess that makes it my job.

Maybe if I just start talking, it'll all come together.

We're all at Genkai's compound. So…

Man, I don't know where to start.

Well, right _now_, Yukina is healing herself, assisted by Shizuru, and trying to get a demonic vine out of her leg. Koenma is keeping an eye on a monster plant that had a strange attachment to her toe. Keiko is with Kuwabara, keeping him from fainting and force-feeding him some tea. Tea that's loaded with Kurama's dream-whatever plants for erasing memories. Botan is administering her white magic and basic first aid to an unconscious Hiei, who sports a nice dent in his torso. Genkai's charge is Kurama, and she's trying to help him pull a 3-foot long 2x4 from his chest. No anesthetic. Good luck, Grandma.

I would like to take a second to point out that the only injury I received the entire fight was a snowball to the face.

I guess it's pretty easy to see how we got here. Why, is another story, but we'll work on that later. The plants attacking Yukina is obviously Kurama's handiwork. That's undisputable. Kuwabara's not actually _injured_; he just learned some info that he would just as soon forget. And if Hiei were aware of this, I'm sure he'd concur with our method of "healing" him. You can guess about my little run-in with the snowball. Kurama's situation is a little tougher to figure out, but it all comes down to the fact that Hiei didn't want to bloody his katana. As for the shorty's own injury, I neglected to mention that his shirt is singed in a perfect circle around the dent.

Heh. Never know when those Spirit Guns will go off.

So, that's the how. We're all gonna live, provided Kuwabara doesn't go mental. Or Kurama. Or Hiei, if Kurama ever tells him what happened. Or me, since I'd just hate to be the only one not in style.

And yes, we did all attack each other.

Why? You know… I'm really not sure. The results, I'm pretty clear on, but everything else is kind of a mess. Welcome to our lives.

One thing I remember with perfect clarity is the cell phone. It's pink. Well, _was_ pink. But, after playing target practice with it, well, even Kuwabara and his sixth sense couldn't put it back together. Let's see, the snowball was pretty vivid. Until Kurama showed up and went postal. And after I specifically told him to stay tied to that tree.

Whoops. A _tree_. So, that wasn't the part of the day when I had a brainwave, okay?

Oh, and Hiei. I remember Hiei. I don't quite remember what he was doing, or how he got there, but I remember he was there. With the cell phone. And the bus.

Right, so the cell phone was Yukina's. Kuwabara bought it for her. Worst present ever. As long as she just stayed on the stupid mountain with Genkai, she was cute and sweet, but the second he gave her a freaking lifeline to the outside world…!

She wouldn't stop calling us. Not that I don't like talking to her, and truth be told, her phone calls weren't annoying at all. Her fascination with it was kinda adorable, (I guess they didn't have cell phones in her little floating ice village) and so we really didn't mind her calling every single one of us about three times a day. Kinda like when a baby knocks over a tin of flour, and everybody spends about five minutes taking pictures and cooing before realizing that they have to clean up the mess.

But it really wasn't a nuisance. Yukina's actually pretty interesting to talk to, and anyway, she was just as fascinated with our answering machines, if we weren't in the mood to pick up. Besides, after a week, she realized that she didn't need to call us every day to stay in touch.

So, that's not the reason I deep-fried the cell-phone with my spirit gun. While it was in Hiei's hand. And, since the only contact device Hiei has is Mukuro's private come-and-do-my-evil-bidding line, Yukina's constant phone calls were not the reason he shoved a 2x4 through Kurama. Or dropped that kid off the cliff. And it definitely wasn't annoyance that possessed Kurama to later jump off that same cliff, or drove me to shoot Hiei and throw him through that bus.

Or for Yukina to throw a snowball at me.

But, you see, that phone is an instrument of evil. Really. It was the agent that began a chain of events that led to three boys and an ice maiden trying to kill each other, and giving Kuwabara a heart attack. And I feel he deserves that shock to his system, because he gave Yukina that stupid phone in the first place.

_He's_ the one that got her the gift of communication. And that got her information, and that got her involved in our lives, and it's his own fault for not seeing the danger. After all, he should have known; he _is_ the one who hikes up to see her all the time.

Yeah, Yukina's dangerous. Don't believe me? Look around the room. And this is just the people who are "in the know", so to speak. The regular humans are an entirely different story. One's at her home, waiting to boil her son alive, and that one kid is still at the bottom of the cliff. Thanks to some quick thinking from Puu, (which, indirectly, makes me smart) he's okay, but Big-and-Blue is keeping him from running off and causing, you know, _more_ trouble. Ayame and Jorge are still dealing with all the people on the bus.

So, Yukina is evil. Even more so than her phone. She's fine as long as she's kept somewhere with limited contact and no gossip, but that darn phone….

She learned things, man. Basically, it was stuff she already knew a bit about, because she was, like, our _friend_. The big stuff. The stuff we probably couldn't keep secret if we tried, so no harm in her knowing those issues _existed_. But now she was talking to us every day, and she got… details. Subtext. Little things that we maybe don't talk about so freely, but everybody else had already assumed about us, because they talked and pried and nagged us every day.

Now the chick had ammo. And little did we know, she was already armed to begin with.

But I didn't know all of that when my day started. When my day started, I was only concerned with meeting up with Kurama and planning our vacation. (Not mine and Kurama's, me and Keiko's. Sort of a second honeymoon, since she'd dragged me off to some cutesy island resort for the first one. Those are only fun for guys when they're single and trying to meet chicks.) The only thing running through my mind was "I wonder where in the Demon Realm is a place where I can have fun with Keiko, pick a few fights, and not have to worry about her dying via natural or nefarious means?" Actually, I don't think those were my exact words. If they were, Kurama had planted them there first, because I don't know what some of them mean.

But, anyway, I was cluelessly innocent when I walked up to the Hatanaka/Minamino household, and very confused to see a pissed-off Kurama exit the house and slam the door. I heard the distinct sound of an angry mother's "Get back here, I'm not done talking to you yet" tone, which always sounds the same, regardless of the wording, the language, or the mom in question. I had heard it way too many times at my own home to not recognize it, but you can bet I was suspicious when I heard it from Shiori.

At least, I think it was Shiori…I never did see her face. If it wasn't than this is even more screwed up than I thought.

But, anyway, after taking his anger out on the door, I saw Kurama take a deep breath. I don't think he noticed me. Had he noticed, I don't think he would have cared. If he did, maybe I wouldn't have had to hit the car or tie him to a tree. But, he didn't.

So, after inhaling all the surrounding oxygen, everybody's favorite redhead turned his face skyward. "HIE..." It would be a lie to say I was not stunned by the length to which he was able to hold the 'eh' syllable, which every singer I've met claims is very hard to do for long periods of time at a high pitch and volume, all three conditions met by Kurama. But I was floored when he managed to move on to the "ee" syllable without taking another breath, and continuing to hold it for another twenty seconds. "...EI!"

After reassuring all doubters that he did, indeed, know how to pronounce Hiei's name, he took another deep breath and continued with his rant.

"IT TAKES THIRTY MINUTES FOR ME TO GET FROM HERE TO GENKAI'S COMPOUND!" Frankly, I wasn't sure why he thought Hiei would care.

"SO YOU'VE GOT HALF AN HOUR TO OFF ME, 'CAUSE I'M GOING TO GO KILL YOUR SISTER!"

This had me in shock, and I watched him tear down the street. Using his rose whip, he got a secured grip on a street light, and actually managed to use that plant trick of his to leap over a house. In broad daylight. With people around, who lived in the same neighborhood he did.

So, I threw off my shock and decided I better go see what was up. Or, like, save Yukina, or whatever.

But, I was so busy contemplating my one thought, (Which went something like, "What the crap?") that I didn't realize I was still in the road, until I came to the intersection.

Of course, did I care? Nope. You see, at this point in my training, I'm a little difficult to kill. It took Sensui, like, half an hour of solid beating, and that was _before_ I became a demon and trained with Houkushin and the Monkettes. Plus, once I _am _dead, I tend to just come back to life, anyway.

So, I kept going. Through a car. No, I did not get hit by a car, this time. I went _through _a car. The trunk half, and though it did do a lot of swervy, erratic things before achieving a park on somebody's lawn, it did not explode. The driver did, though, figuratively. There was much cursing coming from that guy's mouth. But, hey, I had to catch up with Kurama, and he already had a head start!

Just for the record, that car didn't even scratch me. The scratches currently on my arm are from hiking through the stupid forest to get to Genkai's. Go figure, huh? Keiko wants me to get it looked at later, in case it's poison ivy.

Demonic Heroes are not brought down by poison ivy. Ever.

But, whatever.

It doesn't really count as an injury, since it didn't happen during the fight. Even if it did, it's a scratch, not a freaking chunk of wood. No, the only thing happening during the fight was Yukina throwing a snowball at me. Well, a couple, but only one actually hit. If she trained to be like Toya, I bet she could learn to project her aura into her snowballs, and that would be way cool. I think I'd even have put her down for our fifth in the Dark Tournament. I mean, a team member who can heal the entire team, _and _kill people? Score!

Ah, but Hiei wouldn't allow that. I think. Well, he _might_, if she was strong enough. And she's definitely not, how you say, innocent. Not after her big long speech about payback, and torturing Kurama to get to me, and Shizuru doesn't count and the moon is made of green cheese.

Okay, I made up that part about the moon. But, the rest of the speech was true, and the cheese makes way more sense than the rest of the stuff she was saying. But, luckily, Kurama sic-ed his plants on her, and that ended the little monologue.

Why would Kurama attack Yukina? Well, it's not like she didn't ask for it. In fact, I would go as far as to say she attacked him first. A snowball is not the same thing as a man-eating plant, but no one can say that Kurama was not provoked. I don't think he would have killed her, though. And I bet she'd have regained use of her leg in a few days. Hiei really didn't need to bring in the bus.

But, I wasn't really paying much attention to what Hiei was doing. I wasn't even aware he was coming. Maybe Kurama was, but I doubt it, because he'd decided to have an emo moment, and really wasn't capable of anything right then. So, I took over his job of yelling at Yukina.

Of course, I lost that argument. Even when you know she's absolutely, completely and horribly _wrong_, it's hard to yell at that girl. Which is probably why she's not fertilizer yet. So, I let her lecture me, with her big eyes, and cute little voice as she told me why Kurama and I were scum. It was a long, _loooong_ lecture, man. Long enough that Kurama managed to get out of 'depressive' and back to 'manic'. I was beginning to have thoughts of joining his 'kill the ice maiden' crusade, after having to stand there and listen to "Please forgive me, you jerks, I'm sweet, I'm cute and helpless, and you totally deserved it, and I'm doing it all for your own good, and it was cruel and heartless of you to do this and this and that, and so I had to do it, and so there and I'm right, you're wrong, so don't hate me for completely and purposefully messing up both of your lives."

One thing makes perfect sense, and that's the whole 'torturing Kurama to get to me' theory she had. It is so true. We never should have let her in the Dark Tournament. Of course, if Kuwabara hadn't given her the stinkin' cell phone… But, I'll admit it. He's not Keiko, but after the whole Mirror Ritual of Doom, Kurama and I are pretty wrapped up in each others lives. Not that we actually have a bunch of heart to heart chats, or anything. Kurama's way of putting it to Koenma was "We provoke, rather than collude." My definition is "Who needs discussion? Either I trick him into doing what I want, or I flip him off!" Historically, the scores show that Kurama has been doing more of the 'tricking' and I have been doing the 'flipping off', but we all have our strengths. Whatever gets the job done, I say.

But, yeah. Thanks to our selfless acts and an inconvenient habit of caring for the other one more than important things, (like life, liberty, victory and the pursuit of happiness,) what happens to one, matters greatly to the other. His life is my life.

Of course, Kurama almost didn't have a life, after that little stunt Hiei pulled. Hiei, (who, if I'm not mistaken, did not even know what was going _on_,) decided to drop that Shuichi kid over the side of the cliff, and that was just _dumb_. Kurama's reaction to that was absolutely _spectacular._ Oh, no, that's not _sarcasm_ here. He managed to raise my blood pressure to obscenely high levels as only Kurama can, and plunged off the cliff.

So, now we had two Shuichi's overboard.

I'm not sure what Kurama thought he was going to do. Kuwabara claims that Kurama can metamorph into a butterfly, but I don't believe that for a second. It's more likely to think that he was trying to do something crazy with his plants to save his step-brother, but he seemed to contract Alzheimer's in addition to rampant insanity. You see, for some mysterious reason, he couldn't form plants.

Mysterious? Not really. It happened in the Dark Tournament, too, though that was a while back. Now, personally, I think that a battle against a dude whose idea of flirting is to blow you to smithereens would be hard to forget, but Kurama did. He forgot a rather important factor in that battle, that sadly, applied to this one, and that is that his demonic aura is weak and erratic when he's on the verge of dying.

In layman's terms, it doesn't work so well.

And since Hiei had just run him through with a 2x4…

Now, this where Puu's hero act suddenly went sour. After displaying amazing foresight in rescuing little Shuichi from a nasty fall, he managed to neglect big, falling, redheaded Shuichi.

Yeah, Big Shuichi went splat.

Actually, it was the most awkward sounding 'splat' I'd ever heard. Possibly due to the fact that the 2x4 in his chest was five feet long before the fall. It was a lot shorter when we set about dragging him back to the compound.

Luckily, Kurama's like me, and also pretty hard to kill. Plus, he's also got that neat little talent of bouncing back whenever he does kick the bucket. But, despite all this knowledge, after hearing that weird 'splat', I decided to conduct an experiment and see if Hiei had the ability to resurrect himself after death. I guess I'll never know, because it turns out he's also pretty hard to kill. Go team.

I wish I could say the same for the people on that bus I threw him through. Of course, only one actually died, and Koenma brought her back, under a bit of duress. The rest of them will have to be healed, once Ayame and Jorge finish with the memory wipes, the paperwork, the cover story, etc. I vote we make Yukina do it all. It is all her fault.

At which point she'd say it was Kurama's fault, and I'd say it wasn't either, and she'd say I was right, and it was really my fault, because I'm the one who told Kurama, and I'd say Kurama usually just knows everything anyway, so it's not my fault, which would bring me back to square one and the lecture would begin again.

Such a headache. I can tell this story isn't making any sense to you. It's barely making sense to me. After all, I still haven't said why Kurama is so mad at Yukina, or why Hiei loathes Kurama.

The more I think about this, the more apathetic I get. Usually the opposite would happen, and I'd get madder, but… well, the damage has already been done, you know? Even if we got back at Little Miss Ice Princess and her cell phone, we'd still have the problem that we can't deal with…

And now that problem is coming up the walkway, in the form of Shiori Hatanaka, née, Minamino.


	2. Kurama

The situation is rapidly deteriorating.

What is the situation, you ask?

Well, I confess, I was not aware of it until just recently. In fact, until about now, I was not aware of anything except a 2x4 being painfully pried from my chest cavity. The word cavity is misleading, actually. It wasn't an empty space. It was full. Full of things like my organs, and my muscles, all of which are now punctured.

I'm am going to get Hiei back for this. I'm not sure how, but believe me, I will.

Maybe I'll tell him the whole story? Or that we nearly decided _not_ to drug Kuwabara with my dream-flower pollen? That would give him a heart-attack. He still doesn't know everything that happened, or what the whole fight was about. Only Hiei could involve himself in a four-way fight to the death with Yusuke, myself and _Yukina_, and not even have a clue why.

So, the situation. Well, as if it wasn't disgracing enough that Yusuke and I both got our butts kicked by Hiei and _Yukina_, all our friends decided to side with the evil twin duo. So, in addition to all our previous injuries, (Or, rather, mine, since Yusuke managed to get out of this with barely a scratch,) we now sport black eyes, swollen lips, bruised cheeks and a bloody nose.

Kuwabara's I deserved. Using the deadly vetch seed on Yukina was probably going a little overboard. But, under the circumstances, one can understand that my mental reasoning process was not at its prime. Yukina knew it wouldn't be; that's why she used the cell phone. Anyway, even though Hiei had already "avenged" Yukina via 2x4, I felt Kuwabara was also justified in taking a swing at me.

Shizuru, however, was not. Neither was Koenma. Shizuru, I admire, but Koenma was just being a baby.

So, I hit him right back.

Well, Botan had a fit, as did Genkai, and they felt the need to restrain me. Meanwhile, Kuwabara had moved on to Yusuke, who got a black eye before leveling his foe. Botan released her grip on me to go hit him with an oar. Koenma did a lot of screaming and yelling, finally calling Yusuke and myself names that neither one of us would tolerate, and it wasn't long before it turned into a nasty scuffle.

That's when I heard my parent's voices in the other room.

At the present moment, Yusuke and I are in 'time out', (that's what Koenma said…) which suits us just fine. Personally, I don't think I really want to see or know what's going on outside. Yusuke probably wants to avoid Keiko, who has been remarkably calm throughout all of this. I share his sentiment; she keeps gazing at Yusuke in a disappointed manner, then looks at me and sighs. It's very unnerving.

So, we're hiding behind a sliding door, licking our wounds and scowling, and hoping that we heal before Hiei wakes up from his coma.

As if we didn't have enough problems, there are a few more added on top. The first one is that my mother is spending the afternoon here at Genkai's compound, alternating between crying hysterically and yelling at my step-father. Yes, he's here, too. A good old family reunion, in fact, because Shuichi is around here somewhere. In fact, before the fight started, Yusuke had gone out to 'find Puu and get him off the mountain'. He claims he was keeping the kid there to hide us from his view, and so, preserve any chance we had of being able to bluff our way out of this one.

Like that worked_ sooo_ well for the people on the bus. Either way, it is a mountain, and I was a little resentful that they just left my brother on the side of it. Genkai reassured me that she'd heal any injury he had, and no harm could come to him while he was with Puu, but I'm still a bit ruffled. Puu is, more or less, Yusuke's soul, and I don't exactly trust his decision making capabilities in this situation.

Of course, I can't be too angry with Yusuke. He was the only one on my side while Yukina and Hiei decided to play Merry-go-Hell with my life.

I'm sure you think I'm over-reacting. Yukina is a sweet girl, and everybody thinks so. I did, too. Until she got that stupid cell phone. Yusuke agrees with me on this. I don't think he quite believed it at first, and that led to a nasty argument, a short fight, and me being tied to a tree with instructions to stay put.

I don't think he was very focused at that moment, or he wouldn't have tied me to a tree, but after some simple manipulation, I was free. Just in time to be pelted to death with snowballs.

But why was I tearing up the mountainside to kill my dear little friend? No, kill was not what was going through my mind. Neither was massacre.

They were too nice.

No, the words "TORTURE UNTIL DEATH" were playing across my mind like the beginning of those 'Star Wars' movies. Over, and over, and over…. Yup. Yukina's toast.

I might not try the 'killing' plan again, (Because that was just dumb,) but she will taste my vengeance. But, no death. Hiei has made it very clear what he intends to do to me if I try again. I'm a little surprised he hasn't forced himself to rise from his coma and finish the job.

I suppose, deep in my heart, I'm grateful that this all went so horribly wrong. Way deep. As in, 'the earth's molten core' deep. But, when I charged out of my house, my plan was only as far as 'I'm going to kill Yukina'. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't been interrupted, it would have all ended with my committing seppuku. Maybe that's why I gave Hiei some warning.

He must have been within hearing distance, because I find it hard to believe that he left the Demon Plane on vacation and just happened to stroll by Genkai's compound. With a bus.

He doesn't know what Yukina did. I don't think he'd care. But, then, he wasn't the one she called on the cell all the time, was he?

Not that I don't enjoy talking to Yukina, but… now she knows things about me. Or, more accurately, she knows the subtext of the things she knows about me. She knows the details, she knows what I'm feeling, and thinking, and planning… All of us are in very big trouble, and I was and will continue to be the loudest applauder of Yusuke and his destruction of that cell phone.

It was beautiful. And the fact that he nearly took Hiei's hand off with it just made it all the better.

Again, you must think I'm over-reacting. But, I assure you, I am doing nothing of the sort. You see, when this day started, I was happy. I have not been happy for a very, very long time. Eighteen years, if you want a date, and, frankly, the presence of true happiness in my years as a demon is a debatable point. But, now, I was on the mend. I had a family. I placed reasonably well in the Demon World-Wide Tournament. I was accepted into a prestigious university. Life was good.

And then, she called.

All. The. Time.

And she called Yusuke. And Kuwabara. And Keiko, and Shizuru, and everybody I was connected with. Everybody who knew anything about me and was not so guarded as I with their tongues.

But, to be fair, when talking with Yukina, I was less guarded than usual, myself. She was _Yukina_. Epitome of all that is innocent and would never mean anybody any harm.

Ha.

So, she started asking me about her brother. If I knew who he was. At first, I told her no.

Then she told me that this was an outright lie, and she knew it had been since the Dark Tournament. Wasn't Hiei out looking for her brother? I asked. She told me not to change the subject.

So, I told her that I was sworn to silence. She said that Yusuke must have sworn the same oath. I told her that I didn't know. I told her that I couldn't tell her. That it wasn't my place, that my life could very well be on the line if I told. Both of these were true.

She told me I was heartless.

These types of conversations went on for a few weeks, before she finally gave up and dropped the subject. But, she still called, and now that her brother was not our chief topic of conversation, her calls were more pleasant. She began to take an interest in my family and their well-being.

This should have worried me, but it was Yukina. So, I chatted politely whenever she rang. I enjoyed it. I would like to believe that she actually enjoyed my conversation as well, but in light of recent events, I feel somewhat sick.

Anyway, one day she made a stray comment that I should tell my mother about my past identity. It was not the first time the suggestion had been leveled. I typically responded politely, and told her I didn't think it would be a good idea.

A few weeks later, the topic came up again. I informed her, politely, that I would do so when ready, that Mom was better off not knowing. Again, she dropped it, just as easily as she'd raised it.

The next day, she mentioned it again. I said it was none of her business.

She called me right back, and asked me who her brother was. I said I didn't know.

She called again, saying I should reveal the truth to my family. Again, none of her business.

She called right back. The brother. Again, he'll kill me. I can't tell you.

She left about fifty messages on my voice mail. Now there were threats. _"I should tell your mother the truth, since you're _never_ going to. I wish someone would tell _me_ the truth about my brother."_

I told her to leave me alone. She said no.

She said I should tell my mom. I said no.

I told her that I could not and would not tell her about her brother. She told me she suspected that, because if I didn't love my mom enough to tell her my name, how could I love a mere friend enough to give her some peace of mind?

I disconnected my phone. Mom had it fixed by morning. Yukina called. I told her to go to Hell.

And still, the threatening voice mails continued. My cell, the phone in my room, and I lived in fear that they might end up on the family answering machine.

You see what a position I was in? Cornered, desperate, and one should never corner an animal. Hiei warned everybody; I warned everybody, but nobody listens. You DO NOT cross me!

I could have answered back with a few threats of my own, but she was _Yukina_, so I did not. I thought diplomacy was the way to go, not violence. I actually pleaded. I tried to explain my side, as much as I could without incurring Hiei's wrath. Nothing doing. She knew I knew her brother's whereabouts and identity, and she wanted me to tell her everything she knew I knew.

That was something I could not do. And so, we were locked together in a cold war. Except, Yukina had all the nukes. Because, at this point, I just wasn't willing to hurt her. She was _Yukina._

Sweet, perfect, _evil_, little Yukina.

She's Hiei's sister. It should have tipped me off.

When she first got the phone, she often called my mother. Turns out they often joined up for lunch, too. At first, my thought was, "How nice. My mother can meet my friends," and "Yukina must have gotten bored, just calling the gang all day long." Nothing suspicious, nothing skeptical.

I have gotten so soft.

But, regardless, when I came home from my job, I thought nothing of it when my mom said, "I spoke to Yukina today."

"Oh, really?" I should have been on my guard. I was a little focused on a sandwich I'd made for lunch, but forgotten to take with me to work. My stomach had been rumbling all day.

"Guess what we talked about?" Did Shuichi or Kazuya eat it?

"Oh, tea ceremonies?" Wild guess. Didn't matter anyway. The sandwich was still there, in all it's delicatessen glory. I took a large bite.

"You."

"Weawwy?" I took another bite, before even finishing the chewing of the first one. I hadn't eaten lunch, and I was so hungry. So hungry that I missed the look on Mom's face.

"Yes. You. Kurama."

She had to call in Kazuya from the other room to help give me the Heimlich. Apparently, he was listening behind the door. Shuichi, thank goodness, was not home.

Or, maybe it was not so fortunate. If he had been there, maybe Hiei wouldn't have thrown him off the cliff.


	3. Yusuke two

In case anybody was wondering how this could possibly get any worse, I am here to enlighten you.

Kurama and I are still injured, even more so than before. It is nighttime on Genkai's cold, snow-covered mountain. We haven't had any food all day. (Well, Kurama says he had a sandwich, earlier.)

Oh, and we're lost.

Because, yeah, after Yukina came by and Hiei woke up and we started another 'get beat up by the twin tag-team' round, Kurama and I were actually locked up. Not just told to sit in another room and behave, but actual locked doors and Jorge standing guard! Not fair!

Strictly speaking, Kurama and I didn't start it, and we didn't even hit anyone! Well, Kurama didn't; he couldn't fight at that moment. But I only hit Hiei, and it was because he was playing 'Sadistic Bastard' with his katana and Kurama's torso.

And no, Hiei _still_ has no idea what is going on. Would it kill the guy to ask questions first, kill later?

So, Kurama and I are huddled in a cave now. Don't think anyone knows we're gone yet.

Not sure where we're going, either. Kurama doesn't want to go back home, and I concur, but we're a little hesitant to just drop everything and become fugitives for the rest of our lives. Of course, every second that passes, that option looks better and better.

Maybe if I convince Keiko to come with us, that'll clinch the deal?

Keiko deserves a prize, by the way. She's the only one who hasn't yelled at us, although I can tell she's real disappointed. But, for some reason, after seeing how beat up Kurama was, she almost seemed to accept it. Like it should have been expected.

Which is my point, which is why Yukina is the evil one here, not me! I have the proof on Kurama's cell!

I guess I didn't really need proof. Yukina told me of her sadistic plan herself. But, I was a little bored after finding little Shuichi, and I didn't really want to face the Hatanaka duo. So, while everyone was healing/resting/freaking out, I swiped Kurama's cell phone and listened to his voice mail.

He was not kidding. In the short time he'd been at work, Yukina had left at least fifty messages, all concerning her brother, or his mom. The last one was particularly creepy.

"_Kurama? You have five seconds. Five… four… three… two… one…" _And then she hung up. One can reasonably assume that she called Shiori, since the woman is here at the temple and throwing a fit. That, and Kurama's not so calm and breezy himself.

And that is why the cell phone is evil. Because if she did not have it, she wouldn't have figured out that Kurama's "I'll tell her someday," really meant "Over my dead body." And, she wouldn't have figured out that Kurama and I knew with perfect clarity who her brother was, and had, for a long time. Among other things.

Now, I can see her point of view, but we had our reasons, didn't we? The most important one being that Hiei's sword is sharp. And spilling out all the secrets that Kurama hates about himself and has been lying about for nearly two decades is hardly fair.

Considering she knew it was Hiei all along.

Oh, yeah, little witch figured it out a long time ago, before we all trucked off to Demon World. It's why she gave him the stupid rock; she just wanted him to have it.

And then she proceeds to torture Kurama and I with complete abandon. Hiei, you have nothing to hide from this girl. You are peas in a pod.

"_All those nights I cried and worried about him, and you all could have told me who he was!"_ We argued that he'd gut us, and had his own reasons for not being found.

"_If that's his choice, I can understand that! My people were so cruel to him… But, I needed to know who he was, even if I could never tell him I knew he was my brother. I needed to know that he was safe! You two were my friends! You were his friends, and you wouldn't even tell me in secret? You're colder than I am!"_

That hurt. There was some truth to that, but the fact remained that Hiei is smart, and his sword was way sharp. Kurama earned himself another snowball, (I think it was number twenty,) but managed to get over his little emo trip and defend himself. Albeit, somewhat pathetically. Give the guy a break; he's allowed to cry when he's stabbed in the back by his friend.

"_You can understand Hiei not being ready to confront you, but you never considered the fact that I might not be ready to face my mom? How can I go home now, Yukina? How can I ever look them in the eye again?"_

She was ruthless, too. It apparently wasn't just, "Hi, you're son's a demon." No, she laid it all out. The mirror, Hiei and Maya, the Dark Tournament, Amanuma, Yomi, Kuronoue…

So, you see? Yukina is cruel, and her phone was meant to be destroyed. Because before she got it, she hardly saw Kurama, Hiei or Shiori enough to find out about Maya and Eight Hands and how he met her brother. I didn't even know about that. Kuwabara and myself can be blamed for Kuronoue, Shizuru and Keiko on the secrets of the Dark Tournament, and I probably am the one who let loose the mirror and the whole Amanuma story. But, without her phone, and as infrequently as we visited the old house on a hill, it would have taken her years to build up that kind of ammo.

More importantly, Genkai does not have a phone. For Yukina to tell Shiori anything, she would have to get off her safe mountain, and go to Kurama's house. Where she would have been murdered on the spot. With a phone, she can call from a safe distance, knowing that Kurama will have over half an hour's worth of time to calm down/get hopelessly discombobulated, and by then, Hiei or Kuwabara or Genkai would be in a position to save her.

She's smart, man. She thought this whole thing out. And, I say, she deserved to get Kurama's vetch seed in her leg. And for his little demon plant to try to eat her big toe.

I would have done way, _way _worse.

But, let's see, I suppose you want to know what's going on at the compound? Or, at least, what I can tell you, before Kurama and I split. Keiko and Genkai were out of dream flower pollen to make that memory-erasing tea, and Kurama just wasn't well enough to be calling in any more demon-realm plants. He does have a nice gaping hole where his lung should be. So, the Hatanaka's probably haven't experienced any convenient amnesia.

Yukina's probably still crying somewhere. After what she pulled, she still has the ability to make me feel bad for her. Kurama, too, but I think his tolerance is higher than mine. Because Yukina went in to check on him before we left, and he sure wasn't in the mood to talk civilly. He was downright pissy, actually.

He's still in a foul mood, and muttering to himself in the corner of the cave. Something about wanting to kill _Hiei_ now, since it's really more his fault than anything. Not sure I agree, but Hiei is so gonna get it before this is all over.

He is the one who brought in the bus.

That, was the craziest thing I'd ever seen, and after seeing Elder Toguro crawling out of a fat psychic's skull, that is saying a lot. It brought a new level of weirdness to my life. Because, you see, Hiei did not _drive_ the bus up the mountain. He did not _carry _the bus up the mountain (which would have also been weird.) No, this was even better.

For starters, he didn't even arrive with the bus. In fact, his coming was heralded by Yukina's cell phone going off. The bright pink one that I so wanted to kill.

"…_Ice, Ice, baby…"_ I think we can thank Kuwabara for that ringtone choice. She pulled it from her sleeve.

"…"Shuichi" _…? Kurama, why are you calling me?"_ A pause. _"_How_ are you calling me?"_

And that was when Hiei arrived, flitting in, faster than light. Apparently, he'd heard Kurama's earlier death threat. He took the cell phone from her and answered the call, turning up the volume loud enough so that we nearly covered our ears. I was a little surprised he knew how to work it.

And this is where my memory goes a little screwy. It all happened very quickly.

"…_Help! I was attacked by an alien and now I'm being chased by a bus!"_

"_Shuichi!"_

Yukina was screaming, so this is probably the point where she acquired the vetch seed. Kurama, Hiei and I immediately started trying to beat the crap out of each other. And then, there was a bunch of crashing, and I turned around to see a tour bus smashing though the wildlife, and a frantic teenage boy scrambling to get out of it's way.

I turned around, ignoring my déjà vu feeling from Sniper, and found out that Kurama had turned into a shish kabob. That didn't rule him out of the fight, though.

Somewhere between punches, I lost my balance and fell, and it was the luckiest thing ever. Because, you see, I tumbled down a snowdrift and several feet away from Hiei, who was very dangerous to be found next to at this moment.

You'd think, for as fast as Hiei was, he'd have been able to dodge the lumbering bus. But, maybe he was a little too focused on killing Kurama. Because Kurama got out of the way, shoving Shuichi to safety as well.

Hiei got hit by the bus.

The best part of this was that Hiei was controlling the driver with his own Jagan eye. There's some sweet irony there.

But, whatever. I was too far away to hit Hiei, so I pushed Yukina out of my way and tried to get in closer, and Kuwabara entered into my right peripheral, immediately running to Yukina's side and cursing my name.

Shuichi screamed something about how his brother was getting killed by aliens.

Yukina screamed that we all needed to stop fighting. Then she started throwing snowballs.

Hiei screamed that Shiori was never going to find the remnants of her son's corpse.

I was screaming that Kuwabara should stop trying to throw rocks at me.

Kurama screamed something about how it was all Hiei's fault for not telling Yukina he was her brother.

And then Kuwabara just screamed.

A lot more screaming, a lot of projectiles, Hiei and Kurama moving faster than my spirit gun could fire, and Kuwabara alternating between hitting me and going into shock, along with little Shuichi. Yukina pleading with anyone who'll listen, while running away from a demonic plant. (It was just a tiny one. It looked like those little flowers that come out of the tubes on Super Mario. Kurama told it that Yukina's toe was lunch.) Oh, and I was trying to land a bead on Hiei, while dodging punches from Kuwabara.

And then Hiei threw Shuichi over the cliff.

And Kurama did a swan dive.

And I shot Hiei. Then I picked him up and blasted him through that stupid bus. Turns out there were people on it.

And then, Yukina hit me in the face with a snowball.

And then, Koenma showed up, and we were all in trouble.


	4. Kurama two

There are very few people in this room who do not have an injury. Of those of us who do, very few have wounds that could be considered 'light'. By that word, I mean that it was caused by an accident of clumsiness, or that the bleeding stopped quickly. But only a few of us are so lucky. Most of us look like we've lost a gang-fight. As for me, I feel like I played one too many games of "Beat the Crap out of Kurama" with good old Bakken.

We have also relocated to the hospital. It seemed like the only reasonable option at the time. Everybody is so worn out from healing each other that there was nobody left to keep me from dying. And Koenma refused to use his pacifier.

There is an advantage to the hospital, and that is that the need for privacy is clearly understood, which keep the reporters off our tails. Ayame and Jorge must have left a hole in the cleanup process, because somehow, news of a massive accident spread.

But, the timing couldn't have been better, as help arrived just seconds after Genkai's temple went up in flames.

Right now, I am feeling very peaceful. I also have twenty different painkillers running through my veins. For the first time in hours, nobody is bothering me.

Of course, they all think I'm unconscious and going to die…

I really don't feel like dissuading them at the moment. I peeked my eyes open once or twice during the previous chaos, just to figure out what was going on, and then, realized I was probably better off dead. Besides, I am so tired… that whole 'about to die' thing really takes it out of you…

It's been a long day. A long, very strange day. But, for now, it is nice. People are letting me rest, and it feels wonderful. Because, Yusuke wouldn't let me rest. He was all "hypothermia is bad", and a whole bunch of other weird stuff.

He's been weird all day. I'm not sure I'm mad at him; he is still the only one on my side. Even if he wouldn't let me sleep.

My face still hurts. But not as bad as before. Yusuke told me to suck it up, because he got slapped by Yukina, and that was instant frostbite, but it didn't make me feel better. I told him he didn't need to bother, because I really didn't want to stay up, but he convinced me that, for some reason, it was important. I don't remember why.

I guess I don't care anymore.

Everything's beginning to fade. Even the things I had figured out are growing sketchy, like, why Genkai's compound is on fire. But, there's a lot of things I don't understand, and now, I don't really care about trying to piece it all together.

I don't care why Shuichi was wearing an apron and petting the plant monster I told to attack Yukina, or why Botan was holding me like I was a week-old baby. It doesn't matter that things were burning, or that I can't keep my eyes open. I'm not concerned with those beeping things, or the fact that my mother knows the truth, and I really don't care to know what Maya's doing here, or why I'm wearing Yusuke's shirt.

I'm just ready to go to bed, and sleep. Maybe I won't wake up. Or, maybe I will, and when morning comes, I'll see that it's all just a bad dream, and Yukina really doesn't want to make me miserable.

Maybe I'll tell Yusuke, and he'll laugh. I'll tell him that he did a really weird dance in my dream, with lots of stomping and clapping. Singing, off-key, at the top of his lungs, "We will, we will, NOT DIE! Bum, bum, NOT DIE! Bum, bum! We will, we will…." He'll agree that it's so ludicrous, even for him. Especially the part where Maya and Yukina came in, riding Puu.

Even if it was a dream, I can still hear Yukina's soft little voice through the snowstorm… _"Oh, Kurama. I don't think I'm ever going to understand you…"_

She was so nice, at the end of my dream…


	5. Yusuke three

If Kurama dies, I am so gonna kill him. And then, I will kill Hiei. And Yukina, because she started the whole thing. And then the little Shuichi, because he's the one who gave everybody food poisoning. Then Botan, for hitting Hiei with the oar, and then I'll kill Hiei again, for trying to break the oar and bumping Keiko. And then I'll kill Keiko, for even trying to cook anything that involved flambé, and Genkai, for living in a place where half the walls and doors are made of rice paper. And then…

Oh, heck, why don't I just kill everybody? We're all involved by this point.

Or, better yet, after Kurama dies, I'll just go commit seppuku on the front lawn of the hospital, since everyone seems to agree on the fact that everything that's happened today is really our fault. Well, everyone but Keiko and Yukina.

Yukina. One minute, she's the devil, and the next, she's our angel from heaven. Who'd of thought she'd go braving a snowstorm with Puu and the hot chick to come rescue us?

Yeah, you see, me and Kurama were a little, well, "worked up" when we decided to run away from the compound. We forgot that Genkai lives on a mountain. And mountains have things like wind, and snow, and blizzards… and so, we ended up huddled in a cave, freezing to death. I, at least, had my T-shirt and jeans, but Kurama was just in a pair of pants and a bunch of bandages. He didn't even have shoes on.

So, when he started to turn blue… I decided that I needed a plan. We couldn't go back out in the blizzard, so we needed to stay awake in the not much warmer cave. But, sleeping was bad, or so my teachers all said. Sadly, that was all Kurama wanted to do.

I tried to keep him moving. I really did. But, his wounds reopened and I figured that this could be a step backwards.

My next plan, was to slap him across the face. Pain is your friend, right? Kurama didn't think so. Anyway, his face got nice and red, which was better than blue, so I kept it up until his eyes closed and he stopped responding.

I punched him. Nothing.

So, now I was really scared. But, like the good friend I am, I didn't give up. I gave him the shirt off my back, and did everything in my power to keep him with me.

"…_Come on! Sing with me, Kurama!"_

"…_Yusuke… shut up…"_

Even my stamina can't go forever, so when I heard the cry of my Spirit Beast, I was overjoyed. So overjoyed, that I didn't even care that our rescuer was the same girl who put us in this mess.

Yukina didn't seem ruffled by the cold at all, a fact that made me jealous. But she came bearing blankets, so I shelved it, helped her wrap up Kurama and hopped up on Puu's back. And that's when I noticed the other girl.

So did Kurama. _"…hi…"_

She said "Hi" back. So, I guessed they knew each other. Still didn't know what she had to do with anything.

"…_is recess over?" _Delirium. What else could go wrong?

"_Be quiet, Kurama."_

On the flight back, I heard about our rescue, and realized that running away was pretty dumb. Kuwabara and his sister had their sixth sense, Hiei had his Jagan, and Puu would lead Keiko to me, even if it was straight through a hospital full of diseased bugs. There really wasn't anywhere we could hide.

I wasn't expecting to be found by Random Girl, who turned out to be one of "Shuichi's" friends. Again, still am not sure why she was here. I was way tired, and began nodding off about the time she began explaining how she'd followed "the pink string of love" to find us.

When I woke up, Genkai was hitting me, and telling me I was too dumb to die in a blizzard. Nobody was too happy with me, or Kurama, for that matter. But since he was out cold, (ha, I'm so punny!) I had to answer all the weird questions. Like, why did you leave, what were you thinking, and why is Kurama wearing your shirt?

It was annoying the crap out of me, and no one would answer any of my questions. But, when you try to off an ice maiden, people tend not to be considerate towards you.

I heard Kuwabara trying to enlighten Maya on the "pinky string" ability she had acquired, and Koenma had a hissy fit when he saw her. The only reason Ayame and Jorge still have their jobs is because Botan and Hiei got in their scuffle, and then the temple was on fire.

And after we all made it out of that, we relocated at Kurama's house, (since it was the only one big enough to hold everybody,) and went back to trying to heal everybody. Thanks to the fire, we now had doubled our list of the wounded.

And then, Shuichi got involved. He wanted to help his brother, I guess, and since he's not at healer, he decided that the most useful thing he could do was feed everyone.

The kid is not going to be a world class chef, let me tell you. We were hanging by a thread as it was, but when Genkai, Botan and Yukina all became violently ill, we decided that it was time to check us all into the hospital. The only other healer we had was Kurama, and he was unconscious. So, to the doctor's we went.

Hiei insisted that he wasn't sick, so we left him in the waiting room. I think the truth is that he didn't want to explain to the human medic why he had three eyes. I agreed with him completely. Shuichi had to stay with him, as he was the only one who wasn't hurling, and as sorry as I felt for the poor kid, I was more concerned about getting cured than sparing him Hiei's company. Besides, he had Kurama's monster plant thing to protect him. (Shuichi decided to name it 'Snurk')

Shizuru and Genkai had to get their stomachs pumped. The rest of us just suffered. After that issue was taken care of, we camped out in Kurama's hospital room, and waited for him to come out of his coma. Which he'd better do, if he knows what's good for him. I have been through too much crap for him to die now.


	6. Kurama three

I've decided not to be unconscious anymore. While I'm not actually sure how much free will I have in the matter, I have determined that I would much rather be awake and with the group, than asleep and apart from them. You see, in our team, it's not good to be apart from each other. When we separate, all sorts of crazy things can happen. Take the Makai tournament, for instance. A couple months apart from each other, and Hiei falls in love! Not only that, but Yusuke becomes king (albeit, briefly) and starts _thinking_ before making choices. At the same time, I start basing my plans on "whatever Yusuke decides to do", which we can all agree is a bad idea. And Kuwabara, off in Human World, suddenly discovers the joys of scholastic achievement and gets into the best prep school in the region. When we were together, did these sorts of things happen? I tell you, no. It's the minute that someone leaves that the developments occur.

To give you another example, Yusuke missed ninety percent of the Dark Tournament, due to being sleepy and/or AWOL. During this time, Hiei lost control of his right arm, Kuwabara nearly got killed a few times and I morphed into another creature entirely. He did not become aware of he last one until we fought the Toguro team, though to the rest of our group, it was old news.

So, you see, it pays to pay attention to what's going on around you. It's good to stay with the team. Because if I hadn't been separated, and hadn't been unconscious, I might know why my step-brother tried to beat up Hokushin. I might know why I'm in prison. More importantly, I could have prevented my being sent to the women's ward of said prison. That was a nasty and highly undignified mess…

Currently, people are trying to establish guilt, although I will be content with a mere explanation. Yukina maintains her innocence, and while I'm still furious with her, I have to admit that she is not capable of unleashing fiery black dragons from her arm.

It may be better to shelve the past, and focus on the present. Mainly, how did we end up in a human police station? And how did I end up engaged to Maya?

It all happened rather fast, really. Now, I have to piece things together, and though that is a strength of mine, I prefer to have all the pieces. Like what Hokushin was doing here in the first place. Whatever the case, I think Shuichi's random act of violence combined with Hiei's dragon, Kuwabara's sword and Yusuke threatening to shoot everyone contributed to the committal and arrest of the entire group. As for my threatening with a daisy (don't ask…), that only served to get me committed. It wasn't until later that I was arrested, on charges that I still don't agree with.

Genkai, bless her shriveled little heart, is attempting to get us released on bail, and Koenma is attempting to wipe this from the Human World records. I'm sure he's taking his agitation out on that poor ogre, but the one's I'm really concerned for are Botan and Ayame, who are charged with cleaning up the mess after a certain someone set a certain hospital on fire. Once again, I'm quite amazed at the amount of destruction we can cause without actually killing people. Well, Maya died, which brings me to my new marital problems.

All I can say is it must have been the morphine. That's got to be it. Either way, I've got until I get let out of my cell to figure out a plan of action. I admit, I had no contingency plan for what to do if my Kill Yukina plan went sour, so I am frantically scraping for a new idea. Yusuke suggested that we just bust out of prison and get the heck out of here, but I reminded him of what happened last time we tried running away, and that shut him up. On to plan B, whatever it is.

My consolation is that Hiei is asleep. During the battle against Yakumo, Kuwabara and I would have given anything not to have to drag him all over the place, or to have to explain to him how Yusuke was getting himself killed after Hiei woke up. But now, both of us are celebrating the reprieve from his dragon attacks. He really needs to control his temper.

Still, I think he'll be much more mellow when he wakes up. Now that Yukina has successfully defeated him in battle.

Don't believe me? Neither do I, but Yusuke swears by it. And Kuwabara, too, though it has apparently shaken him up pretty good. I'm told it was the only thing that's happened all day to pull Shizuru out of boredom, besides Shuichi's pathetic attempt at cooking.

And speaking of my family… I get one phone call, and chose to call my stepfather. This is because the only people not in jail or busy trying to get me out are Maya, Yukina, Mom and my step-dad. Whatever he might have had to say to me, it scared me less than my nemesis, my fiancée and my mother.

Hatanaka thinks this is a riot. Slightly disturbing, yes, but far more interesting than anything that happens at the office. I think he's still processing the whole chain of events, as he doesn't seem to care that I'm a demon. I would have thought that, from his point of view, this would be a big revelation, but as long as he stays married to my mom, I suppose it works for me. From him, I received the Cliff Notes version of what happened while I was out.

After we had re-congregated in my hospital room, our resident healers began speeding up the process of the human machinery, patching me up to the point where my immediate death was no longer an issue. During this time, information was passed around, like our pasts as Spirit World detectives. After that was clarified, Maya's presence in the room also needed some light shed on it. By this time, I had regained consciousness, but was slightly under the influence of the drugs flowing around my IV. Kaito, bearing a tasteful arrangement of ferns and daisies, had arrived with a book of logic problems, and volunteered to keep the poor invalid occupied. (I think he secretly enjoyed my brain's inability to properly process information.) While he entertained me, (and himself), Maya and Hiei began to unravel her part of the mystery, with much negative embellishment from Hiei.

Ahh, now I remember… It was Kaito. I should have known all that fiddling with my IV wasn't idleness. Because while I was struggling to figure out if Person A was sitting on Person B's right while eating crumpets after taking a taxi, I found my world becoming increasingly more… euphoric. Problems melted away, and though I was a little sleepy, I was quite happy about life. My mind was at perfect ease, until I heard one phrase, which briefly snapped me back out. "The pink string of _WHAT_?"

I was somewhat on edge, though I was too far gone to entirely understand why. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kaito discreetly adding things to my IV bag again, as he had been doing the whole time, but I thought nothing of it. I was too busy thinking about Maya, and how I hadn't seen her since Junior High, and how her hairstyle finally seemed to suit her, and wasn't Maya pretty, and didn't Maya have a nice voice, and didn't it feel good when Maya held my hand and Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya…

According to Yusuke, the next words out of my mouth were, "Marry me." All I remember of the conversation was "yes". But if Kaito hadn't drugged me up on Benadryl, I might have been more inclined to think this through logically. I might have thought something along the lines of "Don't ask that, stupid!" or "Haven't we been here already?"

Yusuke points out that while this may be true, Maya has died already, despite being away from me for all these years. I don't have the heart to tell the idealistic fool that he just proved my point.

Anyway, while I was high and proposing marriage, Hiei was rudely paraphrasing our encounter with Eight-Hands, and Yusuke was fuming. They started a massive argument that soon escalated into a brawl, that for some reason included Kuwabara, (it always does…) and only came to a halt when I deliriously announced "Hey, it's Shigeru!"

After this, a lot of things happened very quickly. I remember Hokushin. I remember Shuichi declaring he was going to "save" me, or some other nonsense, and then attacking the poor monk. I remember Kuwabara and Hiei attacking at my bedside, destroying my IV, and Yukina shoving Yusuke into the wall.

I also have a very clear memory of Shizuru and Kaito munching on popcorn.

After the destruction of my IV and subsequent destruction of the east wing of the hospital, I regained clear thinking. However, I wasn't sure what to do with it. After ascertaining that everyone was, indeed, safe, I thought it might be wise to run from Hiei, who was looking no less than insane, and was sprouting lovely eyes all over his body. I hijacked a poor man's truck, and while I do agree that stealing is wrong, (not really, but I'll swear that in front of Koenma,) one must agree that the situation was dire. The truck offered me protection and speed. Yes, normally I can run faster than a truck, but after so many consecutive battles and my brother's cooking, I couldn't run faster than a snail. Fortunately, due to the same reasons, neither could Hiei.

I made a safe getaway in my truck, and unfortunately, missed Yukina vs. Hiei: Battle of the Century. I still don't know details on why that took place, or, how she managed to win. When I came back, Kaito informed me that all of my friends were in jail, and I was engaged to Kitajama. He seemed gleeful at that last bit of news, but since he was kind enough to warn me about the approach of my mother, I decided not to hurt him for causing what is most likely the biggest humiliation of my life.

The second most embarrassing thing happened when I ran back to the truck to escape my mother. You see, cops were surrounding it. Less than happy cops. Were I thinking perfectly straight, I would have gone the other way, despite the fact that lame kittens could outrun me without a vehicle. But, alas, I was not, and tried to reclaim my stolen car.

And this is the second largest humiliating experience I have ever had. I, Kurama, scourge of many, hero to some, former King Yomi's second in command and the only successful orchestrater of a Spirit World Vault break-in…. was arrested for double parking.

Upon my protests, it was discovered that the truck was stolen, which did nothing to help my case. So now, I am in a cell, staring at a bewildered Yusuke and trying to make sense of all this.

Going back the muddled mess, post-proposal, pre-explosion, I should clarify that Shigeru was not the person I saw coming through the hospital door, though that is the name I called. However, Shigeru _was_ a doctor, and had indeed died, two traits that he shared with the man who walked in. My drug-happy mind was unable to separate these two beings, and I simply called out the wrong name.

However, at the mention of this man, Hiei had a surprising reaction, (that I will be sure to ask him about) and was halfway across the room with his sword raised before realizing that this was not Shigeru, but one Minoru Kamiya, a doctor that had gone crazy and helped Sensui.

Apparently, he is on the path of redemption, and intends to set up a non-profit hospital in the future. More surprisingly, he is currently my doctor.

Or was, since, according to Hatanaka, I started threatening him with the only botanical weapon in the vicinity: a daisy blossom from Kaito's hospital gift. My stepfather really shouldn't have been laughing when he told me this. Had I been in possession of good health, I could have killed them all with that thing.

But, alas, I was not, and could do nothing but watch deliriously as he discussed my medical condition with my mother. This was both a curse and a blessing. A blessing, because Dr. Kamiya knew perfectly well that I was a demon, and could cope with the medical ramifications of that. It would have been a pain to explain certain aspects of my life and physiology to a doctor. By preparing to kill me in the past, he knew all my secrets.

The curse is that now, so does my mother.

And the rest of my family, current and future. I suppose the events of Chapter Black would have been hard to hide once the Doctor came through the door, but it became moot as soon as Mukuro and Yomi showed up.

Yomi, along with Shura, were still on that journey of training, and had decided to come to Human World, now that the barrier was down. Odd, but he actually had valid reasons. Yusuke had spent the majority of his life training in Human World, and Yomi believed his humanity was a great key to his strength. Also, my short time in Human World had wrought an immense transformation in me, the once brutal, murdering thief, and he felt that, while seemingly weak, Human World had many lessons to teach him and his son. I would have applauded his efforts, but, thanks to Kaito, I was high when he arrived.

Anyway, upon his arrival at the temple of the famed Master Genkai, he found the place in flames, and proceeded to track us down. (Presumably, he followed my scent, though Yomi's many aura skills are a mystery even to me.) I doubt he was worried about my health, (we are no longer enemies, but the fact that I once tried to have him killed makes us far from friends,) but, like Kaito, took joy in seeing my current state.

As for Mukuro, she wanted to know who was beating up her boyfriend, uh, I mean, subordinate. (You're not fooling anyone, Hiei.) Hiei hadn't answered her communications for awhile, I guess, or maybe she sensed his aura. Whatever the reason, they were here, and now everyone became acquainted with my enemies, friends and in-betweens from my lives as demon, high school student, and defender of right. (Or, occasionally, defender of wrong.) I don't remember exactly how the conversations went, and certainly forget the reaction of my mom, but I do remember Shuichi and Shura getting into an argument about my deeper nature and prowess as a fighter. Thankfully, Shuichi was on my side, seemingly taken with the idea of me being some sort of Dr. Who- Men in Black cross. He also seemed to take it upon himself to protect his big brother from all danger, and ordered Snurk to attack Shura.

That was the end of Snurk.

After the unceremonious demise of my plant, Hokushin showed up. As to why he came, I can only assume that Yusuke's weakened aura in the same place as a fully capable Yomi, Shura and Mukuro worried him. (Yusuke has always complained that Raizen's minions were too clingy. I didn't believe him until now.) Hokushin probably thought he was here to protect Yusuke.

Maya, using that sixth sense that I hoped would cease to develop, identified him as another demon. High strung Shuichi, in an effort to redeem himself for the food poisoning, and for being the reason I jumped off a cliff that morning, deduced that Hokushin must be another past enemy of mine, and attempted to save me from him. And you can imagine for yourselves how that went. I think Botan's healing him, over at the juvenile detention center.

Anyway, while this was going on, Yusuke and Hiei had resumed their argument that had been disrupted by Kamiya's entrance, and continued it despite the arrival of their bosses or employees. It was currently starting to escalate, when Yukina tried to break it up. And good for her. This is her fault, she should do something useful. The problem was, Yusuke was still mad at her. And he was still mad at Hiei. So, it was only a matter of time before he bellowed, " Hey, Hiei! Yukina knows you're her brother!"

This is probably where my memory of Kuwabara and Hiei fighting coincides with Hatanaka's account of the hospital events. I think I must have been knocked out again, until Maya used her sixth sense to detect me under some wreckage. The drugs were wearing off, so I was finally able to ask a very important question. "Kitajama, what on earth are you doing here?"

The story is too coincidental to believe. She was riding a bus to get to a popular shrine on the other side of Genkai's mountain, when the driver, seemingly possessed, decided to mow down a young boy for no apparent reason. She couldn't make much sense of the strange occurrence, but managed to recognize me (my hair is hard to forget, no matter how many years go by) right before a young man threw an alien through her bus.

She died, which is regrettable, but Koenma brought her back to life. Unfortunately, we all remember what happened to Yusuke after he came back to life. And what happened the other time he came back to life…

So, the sixth sense I hoped would never grow, as long as I kept my distance, came back. In spades. So she came back like Yusuke. Actually, more like Kuwabara, as she seems to have inherited his ability to track loved ones via an imaginary pink thread. (I'm not going to ask.) In any case, it seems my dream flower pollen erased her memory of seeing demons, but not the fact that she had that ability. So, it's back. And so are her memories, unfortunately. So, now that it's revealed what a bleeding heart I really am when it comes to love, Koenma's debating whether or not to take her on as Yusuke's replacement. And I know he's thinking that doing so will coerce me back into working for Spirit World. (It probably will, too. The same thing coerced me into teaming up with Hiei.)

This is the point where I ran away. You have to agree, an admittance of love, battle to the death with your best friends added with all the people you care about uncovering two decades worth of lies is a lot for one person to come to grips with. No matter how old they are. So, I escaped from her, and ran into Hiei, who I escaped from by stealing a truck, which I double-parked, which landed me in jail.

While I was doing all of this, Hiei had decided that if he couldn't get me, he'd go after Yusuke. (Why couldn't he go after Kuwabara? The human was in much better shape than anyone else.) Yusuke wasn't doing too well at the moment, due to being nearly flayed by a certain black dragon that a certain temperamental demon released. So, Yukina, _Yukina_ decided to step in and defend him.

I still can't believe I missed it. Her victory probably hinges on the fact that Hiei must have been on the verge of hibernating, but still, the fact that it occurred is still historic. All Yusuke can say is "I'm telling you, against the Toguro team, I would have totally rather had her than Koenma," to which Kuwabara nods his bewildered approval. I think it would have been worth getting killed to witness it.

Especially since there's about twenty people wishing to kill me once I get out of jail. While I could break out easily, I know that half of them can track me down, and I'm not sure if I'm healed enough to run very far. It's hard to believe that all this was started by a demon girl with a cell phone. And now I'm half-dead, hated by all, exposed as a liar, convicted as a felon and engaged to my junior high almost-sweetheart.

By the way, guess who's still not injured or in prison? If your guess has blue hair and rhymes with Rukina, you're right.


	7. Yukina

I don't know why everyone thinks I'm so nice.

I'm polite, I'll give them that, but they've all known Kurama long enough to know that's not nearly the same thing. I sometimes wonder if it's because I'm a girl, and while I wouldn't call the boys sexist, exactly, they do all have a over-developed sense of chivalry that gets annoying sometimes. As if their desire to protect us equates with our actually needing to be protected, and that defenseless people must, by default, be nice.

It's wonderful to have someone care enough to fight all evils and injustices for your sake, but they shouldn't forget that I'm as demon as any of our other friends, more so, in fact, than either Kurama or Yusuke. I grew up in that world, I've been kidnapped and tortured by humans, I have, as Yusuke put it a few hours ago "freaking superpowers."

And the people who raised me are known for throwing baby boys off cliffs.

I guess it's really not a surprise that they have this misconception about me. As I said, I'm polite. I've worked hard to be polite, because despite what they all think, it's not necessarily an inherent skill. We all have many aspects to our personalities, and the opportunity to choose which aspects of those personalities to develop. And I have chosen to be pleasant.

I made this conscious choice because I did not want to be like the women who raised me, and as Hiei has chosen to be combative, he is ironically more like the ice maidens who rejected him than the one they accepted. Someday, I hope they realize this, just as I also harbor the secret desire to burn that village to the ground and watch them drown in their melting ice. I want to, but I probably never will, because I'm pleasant. Polite.

But my friends are gravely mistaken if they think that's my only defining characteristic.

As another person who seems polite but is not, and one who also made a conscious choice to change their personality, I thought Kurama and I had a lot in common. I thought we understood each other. I suppose we did, to a point, but it seems Kurama still has hidden depths within his character.

I think it's getting overwhelming for his little brother, though Shuichi has taken great delight in seeing Kurama so completely awash in this sea of events. As one who has an older brother, I can relate, though my experience is far more minimal. But I'm getting a lot of pleasure out of seeing Hiei so completely frazzled and out of his depth. Now that the secrets are all out of the bag, perhaps Shuichi and I should compare notes on how to best be dutifully annoying younger siblings?

But, as I mentioned, things have started to get just a bit too intense for the kid. That happens when several of the most powerful demons around are all assembled in your living room like some afternoon social while your elder brother and his best friend are trying not to bleed all over the couch. Yes, we have relocated to the Hatanaka's house, after I bailed everyone out of jail, since the hospital absolutely refused to let us back in. I think that violates the Hippocratic Oath, but we did destroy a lot of property, and anyway, Yusuke doesn't have a heartbeat, which as far as they know, violates Nature. However, Dr. Kamiya did follow along to give treatment to the wounded, (the numbers of which have grown steadily,) though his presence is making everyone, particularly Yusuke, more than a little twitchy.

Nobody's seen Kaito for hours. Kurama refuses to admit he has any involvement with that.

Most of the time has been passed recuperating from injuries, or yelling at each other. Usually both. Unfortunately, with so many people in the house, it's impossible for any two parties to finish an argument without other people jumping in or derailing the topic. As a result, nothing is getting resolved, and it's giving me a headache.

Despite what Yusuke and Kurama think, this isn't what I had in mind when I called Shiori.

I definitely didn't mean for it to go this far, or get so out of hand, any more than Kuwabara meant to shove his spirit sword through Yusuke's arm. You might think all of this was intentional, but in fact, none of it was.

That said, I'd be lying to say we didn't feel any sense of poetic justice.

At the moment, I am hiding in the kitchen. People need food in their stomachs and I think that eating is a safe enough activity that will keep everyone out of trouble. At the very least, it will shut people up for a few seconds. Surprisingly, no one offered to help me, (Little Shuichi didn't dare), not even Kazuma, but it's probably because the chaos in the living room demands their attentions. For my part, I'm growing sick of it.

As removed as I am, I still can hear all the noise from at least twenty separate arguments battling for dominance. I can hear the screams as Hokushin gets on the wrong side of a man-eating plant, and the various ways people are trying to help him out of this predicament. Presumably, it was an accident, since Kurama is shrieking "No, I can't control it, I am missing my right lung, or didn't you notice!" In his entire life, it may be the first time he's ever uttered the words, "Just kill the stupid plant!"

Keiko and Yusuke aren't speaking to each other, a welcome break from the constant repetition of "What is wrong with you two? Every time you get together!" and "But this time Yukina started it!" It was in perfect opposition with Shizuru and that Maya girl's gushing over bridal magazines, as apparently, Kurama's engaged now. Yomi continues to offer his congratulations, though the sincerity is doubted by just about everybody.

I'm doing my best to ignore it all, because somewhere along the way, I stopped caring. All the rage, the sympathy, the guilt, and the resurfacing rage have died down, and only apathy remains. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the way Kurama's eyes never lose that look of betrayal, or the way Hiei won't look at me at all. Maybe it was having to hear Yusuke call me "The Ice Witch" for the millionth time. It could be the realization of all the people who have been affected by the destruction we've caused to the city, while Shura and Shuichi play 3-7 on Game Battler like their fathers aren't on the cusp of a fist fight.

All I wanted was revenge. Is that too much to ask?

I suppose I got my wish. Kurama's life is a rather splendid mess, and by extension, so is Yusuke's. Unfortunately, there was an unexpected side effect. Coming from my ice village, I didn't really know what it was to have friends. To trust other people, knowing that they would never betray you or wish you harm. Yusuke and Kazuma were my first true friends, my first experience with what that meant. The Dark Tournament is filled with horrible memories, but to me, that time is precious, as I got to spend so many hours laughing, joking, hoping and cheering with and for the new community that surrounded me.

Since then, I've also felt what their betrayal feels like, and how to use friendship to extract justice.

I can't remember why Yusuke opened up to me about his first encounter with Kurama. I wasn't particularly digging for information at the time, and I can't even remember how we got on the topic. But somehow, we got onto "Yeah, I was supposed to arrest him," and then moved to "It was the most horrible feeling I ever had."

"Nobody thinks it," Yusuke had confided in an unusually vulnerable tone, "But we're actually a lot alike. And to see his eyes while he was talking about giving up his life for someone, I felt like I was dying all over again. And he trusted me. No one ever did that before."

Friendship is a powerful sword. Especially when wielded by another friend.

What hurts one friend will carry on to the other. And so, my strategy to include Yusuke in my retribution plan worked magnificently, but it carried all the way down through the chain, affecting everybody, and eventually, it made it's way to me. Earlier, I would have bristled at the suggestion that I needed to apologize, but now, I might be willing to swallow my pride, and concede one thing:

I still think I was right, but I was also wrong.

Out in the living room, I hear a sound that sounds suspiciously like Kazuma's spirit sword being swung around. "You knew, but you never told me? I thought we were friends!"

"Shuichi, don't you dare use that Rose Whip in the house!"

Oh, good grief. I may just go tell Yusuke he can kill me now.


	8. Yusuke four

Kuwabara just destroyed the house. I'm going to say that again, because I think it needs repeating, Kuwabara just destroyed the house.

_Kuwabara just destroyed the house!_

Kurama's stepdad is _so_ gonna kill him.

Speaking of, that man may be the most fantastic person in the history of existence. Not only has he taken "my stepson's a fox demon" without a trace of negativity, he's also the only human to punch Yomi in the face and live. As a demon, I vote that we dethrone Enki and make this man our king.

Unfortunately, most of the rest of the party isn't half as stellar. It's normally not my place to say this, but seriously, could we all just calm down for five minutes? Like, I get that this has turned into a huge freaking deal, and it was stupid of us to think that it wouldn't, but the core of the problem is that Kurama and I are fighting with Yukina, and to settle that, they have to clam up and let us talk.

Granted, talking is not even close to what me and Kurama have wanted to do with Yukina today, but there's a big difference between holding us back from doing something we regret and antagonizing us until we lose our cool and/or our lives.

Our lives, believe it or not, finally seem like we're gonna be able to hang on to them, no thanks to anyone else. This team is pretty hard to kill, as I've said before, but we had all that lovely time in jail to just sit and recuperate so at the very least, we're stable-ish now. I mean, I still think most of my blood was left on the side of Genkai's mountain, and Kurama's still got that nice big crater in his chest, but at least we're bandaged and Doctor thinks he can fix us. I'm not sure I wanna know how, but it makes me optimistic about our chances of walking away from this physically.

I'd like to walk away from it literally, but no one will let me, except maybe Keiko. If I ran to the deepest, darkest corner of Demon World with no intentions of coming back, I don't think she'd stop me.

She's not speaking to me, anymore.

And that hurt, man. She was doing so well with this for so long, but I guess we finally took things beyond even her level of tolerance, and she was forced to confront me on why I tried to kill one of her dear little friends.

And that was a nasty fight, and one that I wish we could have had in private. My only shred of dignity is that everyone else was so wrapped up in their own fights that they might not have been following ours too closely.

Oddly, it was when we ran out of energy to yell at each other that I felt really bad. Like, the high energy yelling and passion I could take, but this quiet fury, disappointment and resignation was crushing my soul. And, of course, she asked the question that everyone had been asking me all day, but never given me a chance to actually answer. "Why did you even get involved?"

It's a fair question to an outside person, but I thought, to her at least, the answer should have been obvious. "Well, it's _Kurama._" Innocently and pleadingly, I tried to make her see the logic of that answer, because, seriously, we shouldn't need any more elaboration, but I'm not sure if it all got through.

But Keiko's my wife, so, she understands things like this really well, even if she doesn't always like it. So, she just sighed. "Did you have to try and kill her, Yusuke?" I thought about that for exactly one second.

"Yes." Another one of her soul-ending sighs, and she turned and left the room. Nothing I said could make her turn around. I don't think it's an imminent divorce sort of fight, but it's definitely a "we won't be talking for awhile and you better figure out how to resolve this quick" one.

You know, there was once a time where she was all "Screw the Tournament, Yusuke, get in there and save your friend's life!", but I can't get mad at her for leaving now. She's put up with a lot, and today has been hell. If it took her this long to walk away from me, she's already way above the rest of my friends.

And of all those friends, Kuwabara got to me next, stepping over Shura and little Shuichi's game of 3-7. I hate that game. "What the crazy heck is goin' on, Urameshi?"

That's kinda what I'd like to know, really, but Kuwabara didn't give me a chance to think about it. "You tried to hurt Yukina, you jerk." I did my best to point out that Shiori was having some sort of argument with Koenma and her husband was helping Houkishin remove himself from a demonic plant, and that it was all Yukina's fault, but he didn't listen. You don't mess with Yukina on Kuwabara's watch.

But he was understanding enough to find his way to that one question. "That's a reason for Kurama to go crazy-psycho, not you! Why'd you get involved?"

It took me by surprise, because, like with Keiko, I thought the answer was obvious. "Well, she hurt Kurama." Kuwabara didn't seem enlightened. "He's my friend."

"Would you have done the same if it were me?" The look on his face said he already knew the answer to that. "Good to know where I stand."

He punched me and walked away.

Kuwabara's right, if Yukina hurt his feelings, I would never, ever have gone so far for him. No matter who messed with Kuwabara's emotions, I'd stay out of it. Not that I wouldn't care, but, I'd stay on the sidelines.

Because Kuwabara doesn't need me to fight for him. Of all of us, Kuwabara's the only one who's really got his act together, and he's confident in who he is, what he wants, what he's worth and what's right or wrong. Kuwabara doesn't need me to defend him, in fact, I'd probably hold him back. I stay out of his personal battles, but when he's being kidnapped by psychics, then I'm operating under a level of 'crazy psycho' that would make Karasu proud. Kuwabara doesn't need me to save his heart, he needs me to save his sorry carcass, and for that, I'll jump into the fray in a heartbeat.

I don't jump in to save Kurama like that, but I carry him away when the battles are over. Despite the Dark Tournament just being a platform so Kurama could teach his class of How To Get Yourself Killed 101, I really don't worry about him walking into fights. As far as physical fights go, he can handle himself.

It's that emotional stuff that he needs backup for, and so, if Yukina decided to mess with him, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't jump immediately to his side? If her deal was with Kuwabara, of course I wouldn't have done the same, but if she started physically attacking him, well, that would be another story.

Kurama's Kurama, and Kuwabara's Kuwabara. It wasn't very profound, but it suddenly occurred to me that Kuwabara needed to know this. So I walked to where he and his spirit sword were trying to help Houkishin with that rogue plant and tapped him on the shoulder.

I forget how high-strung Kuwabara can be. After he pulled his spirit sword out of my arm, I didn't feel like talking to him anymore.

I thought I would go talk to Kurama, but he was currently being harassed by his new fiancee, (the wedding colors, by the way, are red and pink. Kurama's gonna look like he's getting married in his school uniform,) and since no one else liked me, I sat back on the couch and watched Yomi and Kurama's step-dad start their debate on just what kind of person Kurama is.

Yukina came up to me while I was applauding Hatanaka's punch. "I'm sorry. I was wrong."

"Come again?"

"I said, I'm sorry."

Keiko's always saying I should just apologize for things, and I'm always arguing that words don't make a difference. I think I'm going to have to rethink that argument, because suddenly, I didn't feel like fighting with Yukina anymore.

"Really?"

"I shouldn't have let it get like this." I looked around the room. Hiei was starting to wake up again, which meant we could expect another fight to break out if someone didn't knock him out again. Koenma was taking out his pacifier, which as dorky as that sounds, is actually a pretty big deal. Kurama was screaming, "But we're not getting married! Isn't anybody listening to me?" And Botan looked like she was going to hit Mukuro with her oar.

"I'm sorry, too."

And I meant it, that was the weird thing. I was sorry that I'd attacked her, that I didn't tell her about Hiei, that I had gotten so riled over the issue. I still didn't think I was completely wrong in my thinking, but I was sorry. If I could do it again, I think I would have done it differently.

Especially since, as I said, Kuwabara has just destroyed the house. While we were all inside. Thankfully, we had enough well bodied people with powers to keep the roof from killing us all.

It's been a pretty intense day. I wasn't really thinking ahead when this whole debacle started, but even if I had, I would never have expected things to get this out of hand. I never thought I'd ever see Yukina slap Hiei across the face, or Mukuro giggle over a bridal magazine, or Yomi shaking hands with a human.

I definitely never thought I'd ever see Kurama sobbing on the floor without restraint, surrounded by dozens of people. Shuichi Minamino, consider your last mask stripped.

And because of that, I'm through with the fighting. Yukina and I have had words, brief as they were, and I'm ready to stop. I can't speak for Kurama, but somehow I get the idea that even if he's not ready to forgive Yukina, he's ready to give up. The problem is, no one else will, a point illustrated by Kaito storming over to the remains of the Hatanaka/Minamino household, leaves in his hair and fury on his face.

"That's it, Minamino, I'm taking your soul!"


	9. Kurama four end

So...

I guess I'm getting married.

If you were to ask me, (and for the record, no one is,) I'd say that I am in a relationship, moving in a direction that may lead to marriage someday, but with no plans made as of yet. But, everyone's asking _Maya_, and to her, we're getting married. As soon as I cave in, that is.

I was a little bit upset by this, but as she put it to me, "You drugged me and wiped my mind, Shuichi, so just shut up."

Yusuke thinks the whole thing is hilarious, but has attempted to reign in his mockery of my romantic history in light of the fact that I can kill him very, very easily. We're the only two in our group who have never traded blows, and I'm not positive who would win if we did, but Yusuke knows that even if he won the fight, I'd still have dealt him enough damage that living would be very, very painful for him.

Yukina and I aren't fighting anymore. It wasn't quite as simple as the make-up conversation she had with Yusuke, but hearing she was sorry made me willing to listen to her properly. The first time she explained herself, we were both furious and she was attacking me with snowballs. This time was much more rational.

Of course, I made it clear in no uncertain terms that if she meddled in my affairs again, I would turn her into fertilizer. She smiled demurely and looked over at Yusuke, who was in the middle of trying to repair the rift between him and Keiko. I was hoping that it had nothing to do with me, but somehow, I doubted it. Yukina laughed.

"Isn't meddling in each other's affairs what friends are for?" And she turned away, leaving me with old memories of a mirror and a lonely hospital rooftop.

So, now that Yukina, Yusuke and I have made nice, the rest of the company is willing to treat us with a little less callous disdain, and the situation is calming down. I thought we were going to have a problem with Hiei, but once Kuwabara dropped the house on him, I think he realized he was in no shape to be fighting.

Now he's in Yusuke's kitchen making brownies with Yukina. I think the parameters of my world have exploded.

Yusuke's apartment is much smaller than my house was, but we were running out of options, and Atsuko was the only one willing to let us in after all the destruction we've caused. In the past few years, her apartment has been set on fire, sniped, invaded by countless demons and survived all sorts of raucous parties. I guess there's not much more we can do to it, and Yusuke thinks she could probably use her connections to get herself a new place if we trashed it too bad.

As I'm still recovering, (though I do have my lung back, thanks to the combined efforts of Kamiya and Koenma,) I'm in Yusuke's room, where my parents are lecturing me endlessly.

And I'm grounded.

I'm a grown adult, with a job, capable of making my own decisions and a centuries old fox demon besides, and the two of them are grounding me! I'm not sure if they can do that, or how they plan to enforce it, but it's absolutely humiliating that they would try.

Not as humiliating as Yomi seeing me sob like a child, but it's up there.

One good thing about the lack of space is that we were able to clear most of the unwanted guests out. Yomi, Mukuro and Yusuke's minions all left, with more blackmail material than they'll ever be able to use up in their lifetimes, and Botan and Koenma left once they decided it wouldn't be worth the effort to press charges against anybody. Shizuru has graciously decided to help Kaito home after Yukina froze him to keep him from turning on his territory. I saw the way Kaito was looking at her when they left, and it's given me a few ideas to implement in the coming days.

Revenge, my friends, will be drawn out and sweet.

But to explain what's going on, since it's been a long time since anyone was able to put sense to this, we did all get out of jail. Genkai and Koenma managed to get the police to drop charges (or forget, I'm not sure which,) provided we paid the bail money, which was fronted by Yukina. I was skeptical about where she got the money, but she has a skill with making ice sculptures that's turned from a hobby into a reasonably lucrative side business. In fact, she had made a lovely centerpiece for my mother's wedding.

From there, we returned to my house, where I promptly informed Shuichi that if he dared to step foot into the kitchen this time, I was going to go fox demon and drop kick him into next week. Yukina took over meal duties while everyone else sniped at each other, and Yusuke and I tried very hard to stay out of it all.

As you can imagine, it was a futile effort, and everyone managed to corner me at one point or another to put in their two cents on the issue. I eventually let myself get commandeered by Maya, because she was one of the few people that didn't hate me and I felt we needed to get some things straight. Of course, once she got me visualizing her in wedding gowns, I realized that my mind had not yet found a way to detach emotions when it came to her. I found myself halfheartedly wishing for some dream-flower pollen.

The wish was no longer halfhearted after my step-father punched Yomi in the face and laid him flat on the floor. Were I in possession of some, I would have promptly used it on myself. "And don't you ever say that about him again!"

If I were half as smart as I like people thinking I am, I would have prepared for battle, because I couldn't see any way that Yomi wouldn't retaliate and beat poor Hatanaka to a pulp. But I was stunned into silence, and in my moment of weakness, forgot to keep an eye out for my mother. Due to the constant running and fighting for my life, I hadn't really been able to observe how she was taking this.

I tried not to panic when I saw standing in front of me. "Hey, mom."

"Shuichi." And the look in her eyes demanded that I confess all, even though Yukina had already done so. "Should I even call you that, anymore?"

My heart dropped. "I..." I had often gone over this scenario in my mind, but I had never come up with a way to apologize without making me sound completely heartless. "I didn't mean..." To what? To hurt her? I had been planning to leave once my powers returned, what did I think she would feel when her ten year old son just left and was never heard from again? And upon deciding to stay, what about all the times I've been placed in danger, possibly dying somewhere far, far away and never saying goodbye? Haven't I always known she would find out the truth, one way or another?

In light of me not saying anything remotely intelligent, my mother continued. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought it was best not to." Her eyes narrowed.

"_You_ thought it was best?" What did I say wrong? Granted, there probably wasn't much I could say right, but I was telling the truth, abridged as it was. I didn't want her to be scared, or hurt, disappointed, bereft...

And most of all, I wanted to be human. More than anything I _didn't want _her to be, _I _wanted to be her son. I wanted to be human.

But I'm not, and that's never going to change, nor do I really want it to go away completely."I thought you would be happier that way. I'm sorry to have lied, and that you had to find out like this..." If I ever fantasized about telling her before, none of the scenarios had ever involved so much destruction. "I'm sorry I hurt you, but I thought you'd be happier no knowing."

Shockingly, she actually growled. "I am so sick of this!" It was all but a hiss, and I stepped back, alarmed. "Always acting like you're superior, like you're so much smarter than the rest of us!" Her terrifying fury was slowly drawing the attention of everyone in the room, and I felt myself growing smaller by the second. For a fleeting moment, I actually wondered if she was going to kill me, and if I would dare to defend myself if she did. "Like we're inferior and too stupid to keep up with you!" I couldn't protest, for it was fairly true.

But I thought I'd be imbecilic, and try anyway. Because as a legendary fox demon, I've never been big on humility. "I don't think you're stupid..."

"Just not as smart as you." I shut up. "You thought I'd never suspect that you were sneaking out of the house, or that you were hurt and in trouble, or that you were constantly lying to me, right?"

"Well, you _didn't_," I pointed out meekly.

"I changed your diapers, Shuichi! Don't you dare give me that attitude!"

To my left, Yomi was lifting himself off the floor, and Hiei was waking up. But in that moment I was so shocked and surprised by current events, and overwhelmed by everything that had happened so far that I couldn't take action or thought. I felt like such a helpless, human child, and something I had been suppressing all these long years finally broke to the surface.

I broke down and cried like a baby.

That did end the argument flat, and everyone but Kuwabara and Hiei were looking away awkwardly. I'm not sure what exactly those two were doing, but it didn't take long for them to start a full scale fight, and once Yomi got to his feet, the drama doubled. As I was busy being emotional, and Yusuke was trying to find Keiko, it fell to Yukina to stop the fighting and defend the house.

Hiei surrendered on the spot, and Yomi discovered how opportune it would be for him to just step down and back out of my life for five minutes. Kuwabara, however, was in the midst of swinging his spirit sword, and in his surprise, lost control and took out the far wall. The building didn't hold up too well after that.

But, believe it or not, it was a catalyst that allowed us to calm down. Finally,_ finally,_ people stopped assuming Maya and I were getting married and let me get a word in edgewise. Yomi actually shook my stepfather's hand and complimented him as he left, and Hiei and Kuwabara finally have stopped fighting long enough to have the situation explained in full. And while neither of them are particularly happy about it, I do think they're adjusting.

I wouldn't say I'm all that happy about things myself. But, I still have my family, punished as I may be, Hiei hasn't killed anyone yet, and I'm dating my junior high crush. There are worst outcomes to be had with something like this.

I'm still never letting Yukina near another cell phone.

But no harm, no foul, as the saying goes. Not that there's truly been 'no harm' done, it does seem that all the necessary retribution has been paid, and we are gradually returning to a good state. Yusuke even managed to get back into Keiko's good graces, something that forgiving Yukina probably helped a long way towards.

Keiko approached me on our way to Yusuke's apartment, while things were still chaotic and before my parents could get to me. "I still can't believe that idiot would do something like this." 'Like this' was very vague, but I understood what she was saying.

"Well, he's _Yusuke_," I offered, hoping that it was enough of an explanation. In my mind, it was. He was Yusuke, and it was _me _having the crisis. This should have been somewhat expected. Yusuke, though I still can't believe it for myself, would do just about anything to help me. Including sacrficing his life to a mirror.

But we all want Yusuke's friendship, and it makes us jealous to have him continuously tossing his existence aside on noble whims. Keiko looked at me sideways, and I felt suddenly uncomfortable. The two of us have never really talked much, and I sometimes wonder what she thinks of me. The Dark Tournament probably didn't show off my best sides. "I suppose so." I wasn't sure what to say to clear the air, but she started talking again, and saved me the trouble. "You're the only friend he has that he doesn't get into fights with. You're probably the first friend that he could really talk to."

"And he's mine," I said quietly. The first human friendship I'd ever had, maybe the first true friendship I'd ever had, so perfectly open, trusting, and willing.

"Try to remember that the next time you're about to go postal. I'm not sure I can take another adventure like this." With that, and a small smile, she left. Just when I think I know my friends better than they know themselves, they present to me new and unexpected depths.

It makes life exciting.

Granted, there are some things I'm not sure about, some things that still don't make sense, and a few moments where I have to blink and ask myself what exactly is going on. But, right now, Hiei is marching into the room to inform all sundry that _his sister_ says the food is done.

My friends and family love me, and there are brownies in the kitchen. Figuring out what's going on can wait until later.

**Thanks, guys! Hope you enjoyed it, and I appreciate everyone who still remembers this story after that long, um, hiatus... But it's been one heck of a ride writing this, and I'm glad I could finally write the ending that could do it justice. Thank you for the comments, as I'm pleased people have been rolling on the floor as much as I have. **


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